Dominique Strauss-Kahn, 62, was charged by police in the early hours of Sunday morning with a criminal sexual act, attempted rape and unlawful imprisonment.

His lawyer, Benjamin Brafman, has said that he "will plead not guilty" when he appears in front of a judge at Manhattan's central criminal court later on Sunday.

The prominent French Socialist, who was expected to challenge Nicolas Sarkozy for France's presidency next year, allegedly assaulted a 32-year-old chambermaid in his suite at the Sofitel on Saturday afternoon.

He was arrested after being dramatically removed from an Air France flight to Paris that was 10 minutes from take-off at New York's John F. Kennedy airport.

It is alleged that Mr Strauss-Kahn attacked the maid after she arrived to clean his $3,000 (£1,855)-a-night suite at the luxury hotel, which is near Times Square, at about 1pm.

"She told detectives he came out of the bathroom naked, ran down a hallway to the [suite's] foyer, where she was, pulled her into a bedroom and began to sexually assault her," said Paul Browne, the deputy chief spokesman for the New York Police Department.

"She pulled away from him and he dragged her down a hallway into the bathroom where he engaged in a criminal sexual act, according to her account to detectives. He tried to lock her into the hotel room."

Mr Strauss-Kahn then departed for JFK airport, which is 17 miles across New York, leaving his mobile phone and other belongings behind him. "It looked like he got out of there in a hurry," said Mr Browne.

Mr Browne said officers were sent to the hotel in response to an emergency call from a colleague of the maid, who was taken by ambulance to Roosevelt Hospital for treatment of "minor injuries." "We learned relatively quickly that he had boarded a flight for Paris," said Mr Browne. "We asked authorities at the airport to detain that flight until we arrived and took him into custody".

Plainclothes detectives from the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which oversees the city's airports, boarded Air France flight 23 at about 4.40pm and apprehended Mr Strauss-Kahn in the First Class cabin.

He reportedly asked: "What is this about?" before complying with the officers, and was not handcuffed. He was then handed over to detectives from the NYPD.

"If we had been 10 minutes later he would have been in the air on his way to Paris," said Mr Browne.

Mr Strauss-Kahn was taken to the headquarters of the NYPD Special Victims Unit in Harlem, upper Manhattan, and was held and questioned for several hours before being formally arrested and charged.

He is to be represented by Mr Brafman, a high-profile criminal defence attorney who has represented celebrities including Jay-Z and P Diddy, and William Taylor, a lawyer from Washington.

John Sheehan, the director of safety and security at the Sofitel, told The Daily Telegraph: "The safety and security of our team and our clients is our utmost priority. We are working very closely with the NYPD on their investigation."

In a short statement referring enquiries to "his personal lawyer and to the local authorities", a spokesman for the IMF said the organisation "remains fully functioning and operational."

Mr Strauss-Kahn, a former economics professor, lawyer and French finance minister, has since 2007 been the managing director of the Washington-based IMF, which loans large sums of money to countries in economic crisis.

He ran for the Socialist party's presidential candidacy in 2006, but was defeated by Segolene Royal, who went on to lose the general election to Mr Sarkozy the following year.

Martine Aubry, the leader of France's Socialist Party, described the news of his criminal charges as a "thunderbolt" that had left her "astounded".

In 2008 Mr Strauss-Kahn, who is married to Anne Sinclair, an American-French television journalist, admitted that he had an affair with a senior IMF official. He said he had made an "error of judgment".

He was expected to seek his party's nomination for the 2012 presidential election. Last week he complained that Mr Sarkozy had mounted a "smear campaign" against him and his lifestyle.